Statoil Gets Approval for Svalin Development

Statoil announced Friday that Norway's Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has approved its plan for the development and operation of Svalin, which is one of the firm's "fast-track" developments. The news follows Thursday's announcement that Statoil had begun production at its Visund South field in the North Sea.

"This is the first tie-in field to Grane, and it is one of the most profitable projects in the fast-track portfolio, as a result of low development costs. Good cooperation internally and with the license partners has led to sound and cost-effective solutions," said Bjørn Herdlevær, who is Statoil's project manager for Svalin.

Statoil's fast-track developments use standard solutions and existing infrastructure to bring them on line quickly.

The Svalin field is located around four miles southwest of the Grane platform in the North Sea. Recoverable reserves held by the field are estimated at approximately 75 million barrels of oil.

On Thursday, Statoil announced that its Visund South oil and gas field in the North Sea had come on stream. Describing the start of production at Visund South as a "milestone", the project's head of field development, Hogne Pedersen commented in a statement:

"We've managed to carry out this project in accordance with our planning and investment estimates."

Visund South consists of the Pan and Pandora discoveries, which are located some seven miles from both the Gullfaks C and Visund A-platforms and have been developed by means of a subsea installation. The project consists of a template and four wells, where the first of three wells have been drilled and tied back to Gullfaks C for processing.

Costing almost $1 billion to develop, the Visund South discovery has been estimated to contain around 67 million barrels of oil equivalent. Transport and export will take place via the Gullfaks C export system.

Statoil is the operator with a 53.2-percent interest in the discovery. Total, Petoro and ConocoPhilips also holds interests.

A former engineer, Jon is an award-winning editor who has covered the technology, engineering and energy sectors since the mid-1990s. Email Jon at jmainwaring@rigzone.com

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